AC3 as fallback for future support

[RobinVGX 2]

Just now, FrostByte said:

If you have that much space use all 3.  Track 1  would be the HD audio for your Shield, track 2 would be AC3 5.1 640 kbps for playback on things like your TV, and track 3 would be AAC 2.0 for all those other clients like phones, etc.  Then you could almost guarantee no transcoding because of audio and get the best experience on your clients

Yeah, but I'm trying to find a balance between having the least amount of audio tracks with the most support. I can easily add AAC, AC3, DTS, DTS HD MA each in 2 languages, but that defeats the purpose of my original question. The usefulness of having 1 lossless audio track and always having to transcode it is quite fine by me, but a secondary "widely supported" audio track would be a good middle ground.

[Carlo 4560]

AAC, 2 channel, 256K is the fallback track you want to have.  Anything else is just "extra".

[RobinVGX 2]

10 minutes ago, cayars said:

AAC, 2 channel, 256K is the fallback track you want to have.  Anything else is just "extra".

Would higher bitrate improve the quality? Or would it not be hearable?

[Carlo 4560]

256K is max for compatibility.

[RobinVGX 2]

OK, Thanks. I'll just add a secondary track AAC 2.0 265K for compatibility. Learned a lot. Thanks!

[vdatanet 1617]

26 minutes ago, cayars said:

AAC, 2 channel, 256K is the fallback track you want to have.  Anything else is just "extra".

This depends on the user's needs. I have a main room that supports lossless audio, the children's playroom only supports AC3 5.1 and my bedroom only supports AAC stereo. For me it would be great to have all 3 tracks.

Edited August 28, 2020 by vdatanet

[RobinVGX 2]

1 minute ago, vdatanet said:

This depends on the user's needs. I have a main room that supports lossless audio, the children's playroom only supports AC3 5.1 and my bedroom only supports AAC stereo. For me it would be great to have all 3 tracks.

But then again what if you wouldn't mind the transcoding because your server is powerful enough? Is it worth keeping those three audio tracks if you never would have a problem transcoding?

The more this discussion goes on, the more I'm convinced that my original question if very user depending and there is no 1 correct answer. Right?

[vdatanet 1617]

Just now, RobinVGX said:

But then again what if you wouldn't mind the transcoding because your server is powerful enough? Is it worth keeping those three audio tracks if you never would have a problem transcoding?

The more this discussion goes on, the more I'm convinced that my original question if very user depending and there is no 1 correct answer. Right?

To avoid HEVC streaming problems and always ensure direct playback.

[Carlo 4560]

4 hours ago, vdatanet said:

the children's playroom only supports AC3 5.1

What do you have in the playroom that only supports AC3 5.1?

[vdatanet 1617]

6 hours ago, cayars said:

What do you have in the playroom that only supports AC3 5.1?

"Only supports AC 5.1" are not the right words, I meant it does not support lossless audio and DTS but it supports AC3 5.1, a quite common system

In summary:

1. If you want to ensure direct playback, you must have as many tracks as systems you have.
2. You can forget about the audio and let Emby do the job, it works perfectly, but you may run into problems streaming some 4K HEVC HDR content (the answer to the original question)

Edited August 29, 2020 by vdatanet